Taft Hartley Act

At $1 billion or more a day, the cost of the West Coast port stalemate is far too damaging to the nation's economy, the wave of economic pain rolling toward the country's trading partners far too ominous for Washington to let it continue. The shippers and longshore workers can reach a speedy agreement or President Bush should force them to behave responsibly. The increasingly costly disruption isn't simply about 10,500 well-paid longshore workers and the few companies that employ them.

Labor strife that closed West Coast ports for 10 days in October took a painful bite out of the national economy. So those with livelihoods tied to the waterfront breathed easier Nov. 1 when shipping companies and West Coast dockworkers reached tentative agreement on their toughest issue, the introduction of new labor-saving technology. But nothing is easy on the waterfront.

In "The Incredible Shrinking Middle Class" (Commentary, May 19), John Balzar deplores the shrinkage of our middle class. His statement was one of the most powerful commentaries that I have read in The Times. I wish such a man would lead Americans in a fight to avert a government by money. The citizen has the strength to redress grievances with the initiative and recall process, peaceful assembly and the vote. Let us all stop saying "ain't it awful" and take action. America can unite to fight war; why not unite to free ourselves from the tyranny of big money?

President Bush described a tentative settlement to the long-running labor dispute at West Coast ports as "good for workers, good for employers and ... good for America's economy." That's usually a meaningless political cliche; this time, happily, it's accurate. Hope for a quick solution had been dashed in October when shipping lines and terminal operators locked out port workers for 10 days.

When 29 West Coast ports that handle about half of the nation's oceangoing cargo shut down, the already shaky U.S. economy shuddered. Eighteen-wheelers sit idle, dispatchers twiddle their thumbs and retailers wonder if they'll get merchandise to fill their shelves.

Re "The flaw in 'card check,' " editorial, March 29 Your proposal for a secret ballot for employees would be fine in an ideal world. In the real world, however, the forces of intimidation available to employers are too strong to make fairness possible. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 removed the "countervailing power" required to offset the control of corporations over workers. That law flattened unions in this country and flattened manufacturing. There is no more urgent need than to put money in the pockets of workers by strengthening unions.

The article on the campaign to pay women for doing housework in their own homes ("L.A. Pair Seek Wages for Women's Unpaid Work" by Kathleen Hendrix, July 28) certainly raised some interesting points. However, it left unanswered many practical questions about how the wages-for-housework plan would really operate. For instance, where will the payments come from? From the government, now that it has all that extra money lying around that was formerly used to regulate the phone company?

March 24, 1989 | REGINALD ALLEYNE, Reginald Alleyne is a professor of law at UCLA. and

The final outcome of the dispute between the machinists union and Eastern Airlines may hinge on how the courts, the President and Congress treat the union's attempts to extend its picketing to employers other than Eastern. Secondary boycotts are legal under the Railway Labor Act of 1926, which covers airlines and railroads. But the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, covering almost all other industries, prohibits such boycotts. Transportation Secretary Samuel K.

So who has grounds to be outraged over what's happening at West Coast ports -- labor or management? It turns out, neither. The party getting the rawest deal, as the two sides squabble, is the American public. With this in mind, federal officials are starting to move forward with regulations and possibly new legislation designed to prevent future crippling disputes, even as Washington copes with the present impasse.